Système Magique Cordial
Système Magique Cordial refers to two historical magical girl organizations. First, a league of magical girl nobility in Europe[1] which developed during the relatively peaceful years after the Napoleonic Wars and which collapsed during WWI. Second, the most successful MSY rival, which developed in the latter half of the 21st century, and which finally agreed to unification with the MSY (after being assured major concessions) in 2110 following a near quarter-century of cold war.
SMC-MSY relations
The true threat to MSY supremacy came from the powerful European bloc which, in an appeal to historical nostalgia, was called the Système Magique Cordial. Based in the highly developed EU economy, drawing on a long tradition of magical organization, and owner of its own set of wealthy corporations, the SMC was a worthy foe to the MSY, and offered the organization its first true gut check.How dedicated was the MSY to its programme of global dominance anyway? The SMC was prosperous, well-run, and stable. Unlike many of the MSY’s other competitors, it deprived the organization of its most powerful moral rallying cry. If the MSY was truly dedicated solely to the improvement of the magical world, there was no reason the two organizations could not live side-by-side, as SMC orators and diplomats constantly pointed out. What, then, did the MSY truly want?
The roughly half-century history of MSY-SMC relations is convoluted, multifaceted, and murky. MSY voting populations were torn between a desire to avoid conflict and a deep hunger for symbolic unification, reflected in editorial and political appeals to “Manifest Destiny”, a phrase borrowed directly from the expansion history of the United States, and which either accidentally or deliberately recalled the events leading up to the Mexican-American War. Complicating the situation were the differing opinions of the MSY’s constituent populations, with many viewing their former colonial oppressors as arrogant and selfish, while more Europhilic populations sympathized with the SMC’s position. Meanwhile, MSY leadership alternated between fire-breathing appeals for hostile takeover and conciliatory pleas to abstain from radical action, often from the same person in the same week. The senior leadership, embodied in the Mitakihari Four and other founding teams, remained mostly poker-faced. Notable exceptions included the conciliatory Chief Diplomat Tomoe Mami and the fire-breathing Shizuki Sayaka, Director of a MSY Finance rabidly angry at an organization that embodied many of its chief competitors.
Regardless of the complicated internal dynamics of both the MSY and SMC, the fact remains that in the last decade of the SMC’s existence, the two organizations finally descended into a bitter cold war, with both sides engaging in brinkmanship-style diplomacy, deploying their by-now extensive covert operations groups, pulling strings with their host governments, and engaging in brutal corporate warfare. The 2090s were marked by a historically anomalous deterioration of the Eurozone’s relations with the rest of the world, and was attended by a recession that was severe even by the standards of an already recession-plagued world. In retrospect, this seems hardly a coincidence. The history of the era will likely be forever clouded, given the MSY’s absolute refusal to discuss the matter, including the alleged questionable deaths that occurred on both sides, an eternal favorite of internal conspiracy theorists. In 2110, the SMC leadership agreed to a merger, in exchange for lucrative special concessions and considerations, which would only be wiped out during the turmoil of the Unification Wars half a century later.
The legacy of the MSY Unification period can still be seen in cultural and organizational quirks within the MSY, such as the preponderance of Black Heart agents who first train in Paris—an echo of the SMC’s formidable covert ops groups—or the number of MSY-sponsored biological labs in Argentina. In 2110, the MSY finally achieved its treasured Manifest Destiny, but it would have almost no time to savor it.
